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Lecture: Appropriation and Invention in 20th Century Picture-Book Art

Dates:

May 11, 2013

Times:

Saturday, 10:30 a.m.

Location:

Farnsworth Auditorium

Serving a larger design and known primarily through reproduction, illustration has long endured inferior status. Recently Norman Rockwell has enjoyed re-evaluation and vindication based on scholars confronting original works of art; he also drew from myriad art-historical sources. This also holds true for the art of picture books. Chief Curator of the Eric Carle Museum, Nick Clark explores the relationships and often direct connections between picture-book art and the canon of history of art. He explores relationships between Eric Carle and Henri Matisse, Ferdinand Leger, and Franz Marc. He investigates Maurice Sendak's debt to Albrecht Dürer, William Blake, and Winslow Homer among others. He illuminates Chris Van Allsburg's admiration of Caspar David Friedrich, Winsor McCay, and M.C. Escher. These are but a few of the sources of inspiration that underscore the thesis that the truly great artists of all genres are deeply steeped in the tradition of art and that great illustration is great art.

Nick Clark is the founding Director of The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. He assumed this post in January of 2001. In 2008 he shifted his responsibilities to become Chief Curator. Previously, while Curator of American Art at the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia, he co-curated, along with Michael Patrick Hearn and Trinkett Clark, the exhibition Myth, Magic, and Mystery: One Hundred Years of American Children’s Book Illustration which resulted in the book of the same title.